Microelectronic devices using a cold-cathode field-emission electron source are useful in many applications previously employing vacuum tubes or semiconductor devices, especially microelectronic semiconductor devices. Field-emission microelectronic devices are especially useful in applications that require high frequency operation or fast switching speeds and have further advantages of small size, low power consumption, reduced complexity, and low manufacturing cost. The many diverse uses for high-frequency field-emission microelectronic devices include high-speed computer logic and memory circuits, and may also include high-speed flat panel displays for displaying images and for displaying character or graphic information. New applications of terahertz frequency signal generators and amplifiers, which can use high-frequency field-emission microelectronic devices, are being vigorously developed.
A review article on the general subject of vacuum microelectronics was published in 1992: Heinz H. Busta, "Vacuum Microelectronics--1992," Journal of Micromechanics and Microengineering, vol. 2, no. 2 (June 1992), pp. 43-74. An article by Katherine Derbyshire, "Beyond AMLCDs: Field Emission Displays?" Solid State Technology, vol. 37, no. 11 (November 1994), pp. 55-65, summarized fabrication methods and principles of operation of some of the competing designs for field-emission devices and discussed some applications. The theory of cold field emission of electrons is discussed in many textbooks and monographs, including the monograph by Robert Gomer, Field Emission and Field Ionization (Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 1961), chapter 1, pp. 1-31, and the monograph by R. O. Jenkins and W. G. Trodden, Electron and Ion Emission From Solids (New York, N.Y., Dover Publications, Inc., 1965), chapter 4, pp. 35-43.